Norman Yakeleya

I appreciate the Minister’s offer and I would take him up on his offer. I want to ask the Minister also on the Mackenzie Valley Pipeline Office, we certainly want to continue to support the operation and look at where they can help support communities along the valley that look forward to training. It takes awhile to be an apprentice, pipefitter or any type of trade that would be required for the pipeline. That’s part of what we’re looking for in the support to get our communities up and trained to prepare for a pipeline, if there’s going to be a pipeline. I want to ask the Minister if that’s...

We certainly look forward to that. I know that in Deline they’re asking about it so hopefully if they really, really do well, everybody in this House will be buying Deline fresh eggs and having some turkeys for Thanksgiving dinner. I just wanted to say that to the Minister to look at other initiatives in our region.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I want to ask the Minister, in regards to the Government of the Northwest Territories socio-economic agreements with industry and the monitoring of these industry activities, and I want to ask, with the socio-economic agreements with the mines, I have been approached by one employee that was working at the mines and he wanted me to check and see when there are layoffs and people are asked to leave work for whatever reasons from the mines, a statement that was made by this individual was that they lay off the Aboriginal people first before they start laying off other...

What I will do is I will fire the e-mail off to the Minister’s office. The request, I believe it was addressed to the Minister of Environment and Natural Resources, and that is privy to this type of funding. Just for the community so I will let the Minister know that this is the wish of the community of Deline and let the appropriate officials deal with it then. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. It’s always a pleasure to recognize the achievements of our young people and that is what I am going to do today. I’m speaking of Siobhan Quigg, a grade 11 student in Norman Wells. She is the only student from the Northwest Territories chosen to attend a French for Future Youth Forum in Quebec City later this week. The conference is to promote bilingualism. There were 125 applicants from across Canada and only 30 young people were chosen.

This is a real honour and a real testament to Miss Quigg’s proficiency in the French language, especially since there is not a lot of...

It is one thing to distribute it to all the departments and it’s another thing if they are following the spirit and intent of the memorandum of understanding that was negotiated between the government and the Sahtu Secretariat. So I will wait and see if the government is going to follow the spirit and intent of the memorandum of understanding that was signed in the last government.

I asked the Minister if the memorandum of understanding is distributed to the agencies and boards; for example, the Stanton Health Board, other agencies. I know the departments, NCPC, NWT Housing Corporation, those are corporations and boards and agencies. The deficiencies, well, that is another issue here. I am asking about the distribution of this with the departments, agencies and boards.

I want to state again the wishes of the elders from Colville Lake on the caribou. I heard the Minister talk about the collars on the caribou. It disturbs them quite considerably. How do we monitor our wildlife?

Mr. Speaker, I understand the teacher from Colville Lake really didn’t want to come back to town. He wanted to stay out there and be a trapper. Mr. Speaker, would the Minister undertake the issue to meet with this colleague, Minister of Education, to see if this Take a Kid Trapping or Take a Kid Harvesting Program could somehow be included and part of the education in terms of solidifying this program like a trades program that some of the young people do want to become trappers? That is an honourable career choice of theirs to do something for themselves. Would the Minister sit down with the...

Thank you. I certainly know that the people probably appreciate this in our budget here. Have there also been indications where fire damage into harvesters area, a trapline area or harvesters where moose, caribou, berry picking, in plants that there are other ways to compensate people if their area has been burnt out in terms of trappers in that area? Is that something that ENR works closely with ITI in handling situations that may be quite complex?